AMERICA'S GREATEST PLAYGROUND 



39 



(Cowboy and Buffalo) 



Killed by Poacher Near Hell Creek 

 Game Preserve, Garfield County 



Two Species of Game Animals Now 

 Almost Extinct 



regret that said territory should have been opened for the killing of 

 elk heretofore protected in said districts by legislative enactment. We 

 also deplore the unsportsmanlike spirit that would permit any person 

 to shoot an elk that had been handled and domesticated to the point 

 that it had lost its fear of man and thus been robbed of its instinct of 

 self-protection. We most heartily denounce the indiscriminate killing 

 of such animals under any circumstances as where a cow poor in flesh 

 or mothering a calf is killed, or any animal killed and improperly cared 

 for and the flesh lost even for food, or wounded and not followed and 

 thus permitted to suffer and die without good to any person. 



We hereby pledge our undivided support to secure suitable legis- 

 lation to protect the partially domesticated elk of the State of Mon- 

 tana, and, if necessary, to have other and additional portions of the 

 state set aside and created into game preserves for the protection and 

 propagation of the elk. We heartily believe in the cultivation of a pub- 

 lic and sportsmanlike spirit that shall protect such elk as are herein 

 referred to, regardless of the fact that an open season may be created 

 wherein, under the law, a man may feel that he may avoid prosecution 

 by killing an elk that has been domesticated to the point that it has 

 lost its native instinct to avoid man as its enemy, and meets him in 

 the open as a friend to suffer death. 



